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Ben Brysacz has earned the nation’s top prize for undergraduate leaders, a highly competitive Truman Scholarship. Listen to a conversation with Brysacz and learn about how he hopes to impact the country’s political dialogue in the future.

Assistant Professor of English Mary Szybist, recent winner of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Witter Bynner Fellowship in Poetry from the Library of Congress, reads her work.

Assistant Professor of English Mary Szybist, recent winner of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Witter Bynner Fellowship in Poetry from the Library of Congress, reads her work.

News

The Aubrey R. Watzek Library and the Exploration and Discovery Program would like to bring your attention to a new opportunity designed to showcase the work of Lewis & Clark first-year students: the James J. Kopp First-year Research Awards.

Becoming a finalist for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarship requires outstanding academic prowess and character. Katie Kowal BA ’17 will interview for both scholarships in the next couple of weeks following an endorsement from the college and much support from faculty who believe Kowal is a perfect candidate for these distinguished awards.

Professor of Chemistry Louis Kuo has been awarded a $249,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will fund Kuo’s ongoing student-supported research into environmental toxin remediation and phosphorus recovery. The research he and his students are doing aims to better degrade neurotoxins found in pesticides and chemical weapons.

Kate Smock BA ’18, is this year’s recipient of the Rena J. Ratte Award, the undergraduate college’s highest academic honor. Named for an esteemed professor, the award recognizes a senior whose abilities and commitment have combined to produce work of the highest distinction.

Kim Stafford, associate professor and founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute, has been chosen to serve as Oregon’s ninth poet laureate, Governor Kate Brown JD ’85 announced this morning. Stafford will serve a two-year term as “an ambassador of poetry across the state.”

Cameron, who is also associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, received a scholarship from the Clare Boothe Luce Program to attend the HERS Institute at Bryn Mawr College. We sat down with her to discuss how this opportunity will help her Lewis & Clark STEM students.

President Wim Wiewel announced today that Bruce Suttmeier, associate professor of Japanese, has accepted the offer to serve as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Suttmeier has been interim dean since March 2017. Suttmeier, who earned his PhD at Stanford University, has been at Lewis & Clark since 2001.

Assistant Professor of Biology Margaret Metz’s research explores how climate and latitude affect the coexistence of tree species in forests around the world. Her recent research on forest diversity in Ecuador is featured in the international science journal Nature.

Citing how international education is in “Lewis & Clark’s DNA,” President Wim Wiewel extolled the critical need for the international exchange of people and ideas in a guest column in the post-Thanksgiving Sunday Oregonian.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has recognized Tamily Weissman-Unni, associate professor of biology and cochair of neuroscience, with the 2017 Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award.

The new 2018 U.S News & World Report Best Colleges rankings identify Lewis & Clark’s Overseas and Off-Campus Programs as among the best in the nation. The peer rankings also feature Lewis & Clark on the “Best Undergraduate Teaching” list, a select group of 30 liberal arts colleges where the faculty has an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching.

For the first time, Oregon July bar exam results will be judged by a standard that is closer to that of national norms. Earlier in the year, the Oregon Supreme Court adopted the recommendations of the Board of Bar Examiners (BBX) to set the pass score at 274, lowering it from its historic score of 284.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Maryann Bylander studies mobility and migration in the Global South. Currently in Cambodia leading a field research expedition with students, Bylander has just had a column published in the Phnom Penh Post. In it, she urges better treatment of migrant Cambodian workers in Thailand.

On June 1, Samir Parikh will take the reins as the new director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Lewis & Clark College. The center’s mix of academic and real-world offerings give students from all disciplines the chance to explore various subjects through an entrepreneurial lens.

For the fifth year in a row, Lewis & Clark has been named one of the top producers of Fulbright Award winners in the country, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. With ten Fulbright scholars in 2016–17, Lewis & Clark is in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the nation, and the only one in Oregon.

Rose Ngo ’17 has been awarded a Davies-Jackson Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Administered by the Council of Independent Colleges, the scholarship grants exceptional students who are among the first in their families to go to college the opportunity to study at the world-renowned St. John’s College.

This award is presented annually to a student affairs professional who contributes to an outstanding SA program, provides service beyond expectation of their position, and encourages colleagues and students to pursue their own professional growth.

Lewis & Clark faculty voted unanimously to approve a new minor in Middle East/North Africa studies. Lewis & Clark is the first liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest to offer such a program. The program formally begins in the fall of 2017.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has named Dawn Odell, associate professor of art history, the recipient of a fellowship for her project, “Chinese Art in Early Modern Europe and America.” A former Fulbright Scholar, Odell specializes in Chinese and early modern European art.

The Society for Classical Studies has awarded Associate Professor With Term in Humanities Gordon Kelly a 2016 Teaching Excellence Award. Kelly is one of just three recipients to be granted this award honoring professors in the United States and Canada who have set themselves apart in the quality and innovation of their teaching.

Kristina Dill BA ’16 is the latest Lewis & Clark graduate to earn a spot as a finalist for the internationally regarded Rhodes Scholarship. If she wins, she will be one of 32 students honored nationwide and Lewis & Clark’s third alumni to attain this prestigious award, which funds pursuit of a graduate degree at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

On October 19, the national Phi Beta Kappa Society launches its (En)Lightning Talks series with Associate Professor of Biology Greta Binford, who’ll illuminate the value of spiders. The talk kicks off Phi Beta Kappa’s designation of Portland as an Arts and Sciences City of Distinction.

For the fourth time in five years, academic leaders from around the nation have identified our Overseas and Off-Campus Programs as among the best in the nation. Lewis & Clark, where more than 60 percent of students study abroad, is the only school in the Pacific Northwest to make the list this year.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Lewis & Clark $705,000 to develop a Teaching Excellence Program, a coordinated program that will support faculty in the exploration, systematic study, and targeted enhancement of their classroom teaching. The award follows a previous Mellon grant to support undergraduate research in the arts and humanities.

A team of five Lewis & Clark students have qualified for the final rounds of the 2016 Cleantech Challenge. The competition, held at Portland State University, invites student entrepreneurs to showcase their inventions and compete for a $10,000 grand prize.

The pursuit of a better understanding of how the brain grows and functions is the goal of Tamily Weissman-Unni’s research laboratory. Weissman has been named a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award that will support her research and teaching over the next five years.

Four biology alumni have been awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. The awards are investments in the education of outstanding students who have the potential to contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.

Every year, Lewis & Clark Professor of Education Zaher Wahab leaves Portland to devote four months of service to the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education. This photo slideshow features images Wahab captured during a recent stay in Afghanistan.